A stranded motorist and the
veteran Freeway Service Patrol (FSP) tow truck driver who came to
his rescue together helped the roving tow truck service reach its 1
millionth assist on Monday, March 24, 2003.

Steve Kinsey, chair of the
Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) Service Authority for
Freeways and Expressways (SAFE), which administers and operates the
FSP in partnership with Caltrans and the California Highway Patrol (CHP),
lauded the milestone.

"The FSP provides a vital
service for the region, and motorists who’ve been helped tell us
frequently how much they appreciate it," Kinsey said.
"They call our drivers ‘guardian angels’ and ‘knights in
shining armor’ and 93 percent of them give the service the highest
possible rating."

Daisaku Edwards of Vallejo, whose
car stalled at 9:45 a.m. on the 24th at the dangerous Interstate
80/580/880 split in Oakland as he was taking his 3-year-old son to
daycare, would definitely concur with that assessment. His heartfelt
remark to Rick Mendell, the FSP driver who quickly towed Edwards’
red Hyundai to a safe spot off the freeway, was, "It’s great
that you guys are out here providing this service to the public. I
won’t complain the next time I get a bill from the DMV to pay my
vehicle registration fees [part of which fund the FSP
program]."

For Mendell, who has been driving
for the FSP since the program’s inception in 1992, it was all in a
day’s work. FSP drivers stop an average of more than 300 times a
day, during the busiest traffic periods, to clear accidents, assist
stranded motorists, remove dangerous road debris, tag abandoned
vehicles, and otherwise help to make the region’s freeways safer
and less congested.

In the ten plus years of its
existence, the FSP has grown from a single, three-truck beat in the
Interstate 680/Highway 24 interchange area to a network that today
includes 33 beats, 74 trucks, and some 450 miles of coverage all
around the region. (For a map of current FSP service areas, go to www.mtc.ca.gov/projects/fsp/fspmap.htm.)

FSP drivers provide basic services
free of charge such as changing a tire, jump-starting a battery,
taping hoses, or providing a gallon of fuel. If they can’t get
stalled vehicles running within a few minutes, they tow them off the
freeway—at no charge to the vehicle’s owner—to the nearest
safe location identified by the CHP, where the motorist can call a
private tow service.

The FSP program is paid for by a
variety of federal, state, and local funds, including part of a
$1-per-vehicle annual registration fee assessed to Bay Area
motorists.